


Keep Each Other Safe When We Risk It All

by professorplum221



Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Blood and Violence, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:53:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28638078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professorplum221/pseuds/professorplum221
Summary: A few stolen moments between Commissars Yarrick & Seroff after their first battle on the planet Mistral
Relationships: Sebastian Yarrick/Dominic Seroff
Kudos: 2





	Keep Each Other Safe When We Risk It All

**Author's Note:**

> This is meant to take place near the beginning of the book Imperial Creed! The title is from the song "Knife Thrower" by Charming Disaster, again, because I really like that song.

By the time we arrived at the barracks, the heretics' blood on my face and my uniform had dried.

Seroff followed me in silence to my quarters, and in silence we both undressed.

The warm water in the shower ran almost red for the first few minutes as it stripped us of the remaining residue of our first battle on Mistral.

He kissed me as soon as our lips were clean.

"You were incredible out there today," he told me. "The way you moved—there was some kind of grace to it, even when the fighting was at its worst."

"You were watching me instead of the enemy?" I asked. Not that I hadn't noticed him too, even from a distance, before both of our companies arrived at the gate. It's as instinctive as pulling the trigger, sometimes, to keep an eye out for those on your side you care about most—the ones you want to protect. The ones who make it all worth the risk.

He nodded. "I couldn't help it. Even when I turned my eyes back to the front lines, I was thinking about you—about how much I wanted you."

"You can have me now."

He pressed his lips to mine once more in reply, then wasted no time in sinking to his knees and taking me into his mouth. I closed my eyes—only to immediately snap them open again when visions of earlier violence assaulted my retinas in the dark. The water beat against my back, and I wondered if there was enough of it on all of Mistral to wash away what I had seen. 

When we moved to the bedroom, I drove into him with almost the same fury I had brought to the battle just hours ago. With my hand entwined in his damp blond curls, I pressed his face into the pillow, which muffled everything he said—but I knew him well enough to make out the most important details. My name, repeated—at least one invocation of the Emperor—and a series of desperate pleas for even more.

As I lay down on the bed afterward, I felt some sense of ease and contentment returning to my mind, gradually pushing aside the sights and sounds that had been haunting me since earlier that day—the horrific desecration of the underground chapel, and the bone-chilling scream that erupted from the unholy titan as it fell. I have never been able to purge those experiences from my memory completely, just as I have never been able to forget anything that happened on Mistral. I doubt I ever will. I was still shaken for the many of the coming days. But I was able to recover from enough of the initial shock to continue in my duties to the Imperium, and it helped to have Dominic Seroff’s head resting on my shoulder.

"All in all, not a bad day on the job, I think," he said.

I chuckled and ruffled his hair, now mostly dry and already tangled into severe disarray.

"You really needed that too, didn't you?" he asked. He looked up at me for an answer, bright blue eyes full of light and life.

I rarely allow myself to dwell on pointless longing for the past, but I do miss the days when I could gaze into those eyes. When they still shone with affection for me, and when I could meet them evenly with two eyes of my own.

I nodded. "I'm worried," I finally told him, "About what might happen next. You saw the same thing I did in that chapel—the corruption on this planet runs deep. The fight is far from over."

"I know," he said, wrapping his arm around my chest. "But we'll get through it together, right? We always have."

"Always."

What he said was true, back then. But I knew, even before that daemon taunted me with twisted visions of my future, that it couldn't remain that way forever.


End file.
